Bread on the Table—The Hermeneutics and Politics of Daily Life On the wall of our dining area is hand watercolor painting of a table grace enshrined in my memory and the memory of my birth and marriage family that reads: Back of the bread is the Snowy Flour— And back of the Flour is the Mill— Back of the Mill is the Wheat and the Shower And the Sun and the Father’s Will. I grew up praying it at special and ordinary meals and recall it being described as “our family grace.” I treasure the painting all the more because my grandmother painted it. In later years I have discovered a similar version by Maltbie D. Babcock, upon which “the family prayer” is no doubt based. I do not know where the family variants “snowy” and “Sun” came from. What has struck me for years now is the kind of naturalist and “thick” perspective on grace and blessing that this prayer expresses. Instead of the direct causality of the Bible (God giving us bread—manna dropping down in the wilderness of Exodus and John ...